BAML's chairman of FIG investment banking has departed

Bank of America Merrill Lynch's chairman of European financial institutions investment banking has stepped down after more than 17 years at the bank.

Henrietta Baldock, chair of BAML's FIG investment banking team, left the bank in September. Baldock is a highly regarded deal-maker who has been working in investment banking since 1992, when she joined Dresdner Kleinwort as a graduate from the University of Bristol.

She spent eight years there, rising to director level, before joining Merrill Lynch in 2000. She has held various senior roles at BAML, but stepped up to head its European financial institutions group in 2009. However, she was promoted to chair of BAML's FIG group in 2012. Her next move is not known, but her LinkedIn profile said she was "taking a breath".

Baldock's departure is the latest in a series of shake-ups in BAML's FIG investment banking team over the past couple of years. In March last year, Michael Frieser, who took over from Baldock as head of FIG in Europe in 2012, joined her as chair of the regional business. He was replaced by former Goldman Sachs banker Giorgio Cocini, who joined the bank in 2013, and Arif Vohra, who has been at BAML since 2001.

In September, BAML also said that it was promoting Jim O‘Neil, it's global head of FIG, to co-head its corporate and investment bank in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). New York-based Eric Bischof took sole control of the group following O'Neill's promotion.